


dive in deep (into the ocean)

by sassymajesty



Series: clexaweek19 [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Beaches, Clexaweek2019, F/F, useless lesbian
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 14:53:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17920949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sassymajesty/pseuds/sassymajesty
Summary: Letting her eyes drift from her sibling and scan the shore, Lexa finds herself smiling. People watching has never really been her thing, but seeing a mom repeatedly try to show her screaming toddler the sea isn’t as scary as he thinks makes her rethink that. She watches kids playing with a ball on the shallow end, letting it skitter on the water and retrieving it before it gets too far. She watches a middle aged man leaving the water with a speedo far too tight to leave anything to the imagination – she looks away quickly, because oh boy. She watches tweens braiding their wild hair, young boys building sand castles, bored women turning pages on their books.She’s moving from person to person, content to just let the waves bob her up and down as she finds the next interesting thing going on at the packed beach.Then her eyes catch something odd – camera lenses, pointed directly at her.





	dive in deep (into the ocean)

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: I went to the beach for the first time ever this summer and this is pretty much what happened to me, minus the cute girl. It's a shameless self insert. Hope you enjoy is as much as I enjoyed writing it!
> 
> Content warning for somewhat detailed descriptions of almost drowning.
> 
> You can find the moodboard for this story in [this Tumblr post.](http://sassymajesty.tumblr.com/post/183052296713)

Lexa stands on the beach, close enough to the sea so the waves can wash over her feet. The water is colder than she thought it would be. Clearer too. 

But the one thing she thinks she’ll never get over is the odd sensation that comes with the water pulling sand right from underneath her feet, digging a hole where they’re firmly planted, until they’re almost completely covered and she has to pluck them free, wash them clean, move to another spot. It’s enough to keep her entertained for longer than she’s willing to admit.

The beach is an odd place altogether. Her friends – the two who had actually left the Midwest and visited a beach before – had told her the sea had an almost unbearable smell and the sand was so fine she’d be finding it in her hair long after she had gone back home. Lexa is inclined to believe them about the sand, it’s already clinging to her swimming shorts and her calves. But the sea doesn’t smell like fish, not really, not even when she takes a deep breath in. It smells like  _ salt _ , more than anything, and it doesn’t really make sense to her. It smells like salt and warmth, like deep rooted secrets that have floated in these waters since the beginning of times, like happiness and sunscreen.

Well, that last one might just be her.

Her mom had scared her nearly to death about the importance of wearing sunscreen and reapplying it every two hours, threatening her dad of making him homeless if her children came back home peeling before letting them go catch their flight. She must look like a freak, coated in sunscreen and covering more skin than any other five people combined would. But the apples of her cheeks are starting to prickle already, so she’ll believe her mom and reapply it in an hour and a half.

It’s the first time the Woods family goes on vacation without a member and it’s been trying so far. From the trip to the airport to the room assignments to the carefully planned out  _ family fun _ her dad – a monster of a man wearing Hawaii themed shirts when they’re on the east coast – had had laminated, it’s been a challenge to keep the peace. Something only their mom seems to be able to do.

Anya seems as excited about sharing a room with Lexa as Lincoln is about sharing a room with their dad – it makes sense, but the two college kids want nothing more than be able to go to bars and parties without having to wake up their dad or dragging their teenage sister along. Lexa doesn’t mind. She’d rather stay in most nights anyway, taking full advantage of the hammocks their hotel has on the garden. But it still means she’s left alone every chance they get.

Like right now. Anya is supposed to be “watching” her, and the way her dad worded it made both of them groan, but she’s gone to get herself some drink made inside a pineapple, only telling Lexa to stay out of the water for now. Lincoln should be somewhere near, “in case she drowns”, but one glance towards the lifeguard stand tells Lexa she’s be halfway to Europe before he even noticed she was gone.

She feels like a toddler who’s never been near water. It’s her first time at the beach – Anya had visited it with her friends before high school graduation and Lincoln is attending a college around here – but it’s not like she can’t swim. Lexa can probably swim better than both her siblings combined. She did spend most of last summer swimming around the lake a few miles away from the city, getting a gorgeous tan and more muscles in her arms than she thought she could have.

The memory stings. Her best friend had become her girlfriend during that summer, only to become a stranger the moment winter was over. Lexa thinks about racing each other from one side of the lake to the other, making out on the soft grass beside it, their feet dangling in the water as they talked about nothing and everything under the stars. 

But if anything, it taught her how to deal with water.

Setting her jaw straight and glancing over her shoulder to make sure neither Lincoln nor Anya are near her, Lexa plucks both her feet from where the water had buried them again and walks into the sea. 

The waves crash around her when the water hits her knee, spilling salt on her skin and sending shivers up her spine. It’s fun to watch the waves building up halfway to the horizon and crawling towards her in an elegant form before crumbling to nothing and foam when it gets closer to the shore. But she knows this is the dangerous spot, where she might lose her footing and get pulled further than she can handle, so she keeps walking.

It doesn’t take much walking for the water to be on her chest. Lexa bends her knees to give her a better chance against the waves, moves her arms in front of her to help with her balance and looks over to where Anya has joined Lincoln. Her sister looks bored to death as she sips on her pineapple drink and her brother has just grabbed a frisbee out of nowhere, tossing it up and down to keep himself busy while his college friends drive down for them to meet. They haven’t even realized she’s gone.

Letting her eyes drift from her sibling and scan the shore, Lexa finds herself smiling. People watching has never really been her thing, but seeing a mom repeatedly try to show her screaming toddler the sea isn’t as scary as he thinks makes her rethink that. She watches kids playing with a ball on the shallow end, letting it skitter on the water and retrieving it before it gets too far. She watches a middle aged man leaving the water with a speedo far too tight to leave anything to the imagination – she looks away quickly, because oh boy. She watches tweens braiding their wild hair, young boys building sand castles, bored women turning pages on their books. 

She’s moving from person to person, content to just let the waves bob her up and down as she finds the next interesting thing going on at the packed beach. 

Then her eyes catch something odd – camera lenses, pointed directly at her.

Lexa feels her smile falling as she tilts her chin up and narrows her eyes ever so slightly. It’s enough for whoever is behind that camera to peel their eye from the viewfinder and look at her, barely having the decency to look abashed at having been caught. It’s nerve wracking. Sure, it’s not all different from what she had been doing, but at least she’s not keeping a record of her people watching.

When the camera is out of view and she sees an arm hesitantly raising to wave a weak  _ hello _ , Lexa is taken aback. The girl behind it is breathtaking. Even from the distance, Lexa can tell she’s not a tourist – her tan is too rich to be something she got in the few weeks since summer really began. She’s wearing booty shorts and a bikini top, paired with flip flops, which makes the camera seem even more out of place. 

Lexa doesn’t answer her, doesn’t wave back, doesn’t even nod. She’s not about to be polite to someone who was taking her picture without her even knowing about it, let alone consent. 

Instead, she lets the salty breeze fill her lungs and turns her attention back to the sea – she’s here to swim, not to gawk at local photographers. Lexa keeps her body tensed and turned sideways to the beach, letting the waves pass through her without much resistance, her feet floating away from the sand underneath for a moment before she finds her footing again. It gives her a fluttering in her stomach that feels too familiar, even if she never experienced anything like the waves before.

The mid-morning sun is starting to get too hot on her shoulders, but Lexa can’t be bothered with the heat when it makes something shine in the water. She squints her eyes against the glare and turns her back to the fun, waving her arms in front of her to see if she can find whatever it is again. It doesn’t take much. 

Under the sunshine, the water isn’t as clear as Lexa first thought. Under the sunshine, she can see the tiniest specks of gold and silver and dark copper floating just underneath the surface – just like the glitter jar she has on her nightstand, even if it doesn’t quite look like constellations here. Lexa moves her hands more slowly, watching how the little nature glitter avoids her skin, clings to the fine hair of her arm. Then she raises her arms, watching how it glitters more than any body lotions she could possibly find.

It puts a smile on her face. She’s  _ glowing _ .

She racks her brain for a moment, trying to put a name to what she’s swimming in. Then the word comes, still foreign – mica. Silicate minerals, usually found in sheets, ground up to be used in construction and automotive industry. The clinical words she’s learned about in biology, and even the meaning of the word in Latin (to glitter), don’t encompass how beautiful it truly is.

Lexa lets herself get carried away by the thought of putting some of this water into a plastic bottle and giving her glitter jar a companion – she wonders if it shines like this when she puts a lantern close to it, how it’d look against the dark purples and blues of the one she has at one, what she could–

The wave hits her full on the back. It goes over her head, pulling her under, tumbling her over. She tastes salt and old fish before she remembers to close her mouth, she feels her airway burn before she realizes she can’t fucking breathe underwater. 

She’s realizing things far too late.

Her legs kick clumsily under her. Or above her. She can’t tell what’s up and what’s down. Her arms reach out without grasping anything. Her lungs ache. Lexa can’t tell if it’s the salt or hopelessness.

Opening her eyes isn’t an option when her mouth already stings from all the mica she had been admiring just seconds ago, and Lexa kicks harder, and harder. She knows how to swim. She knows how to swim, it shouldn’t be this harder to stay afloat on salty water than it is in fresh water. It doesn’t make sense. But then again, nothing makes sense because the sun is nowhere and she can’t find the ground she had been touching just now.

When something wraps around her waist and pulls her in a sure direction, Lexa doesn’t even question it. A giant squid made its way to the shore and is pulling her to the high seas where the light doesn’t find the ground. She only half heartedly fights it, knowing she has no chance of coming out of this attack alive.

It’s more a shock than a relief when Lexa feels the sun on her face, pure air filling her lungs again.

“You’re okay now, stop kicking,” the voice comes to her so muffled that Lexa is pretty sure she’s still underwater. Can squid sting you somehow and make you hallucinate? She should have read up on it a little more. But, when she turns her head to the general direction of that voice, she’s glad that the killer squid decided to make her daydream about the cute photographer she’d seen earlier.

Lexa looks around her. She has to blink her surprise – and the salt that found its way into her eyes – away. She’s not being dragged towards the deep ocean, but towards the shore. The girl. The cute blonde girl has her arm around her waist, propping her up enough that she’s not in any danger. Fool. The giant squid will show them no mercy.

“You should've left me behind, now two will die here instead of one,” Lexa manages to croak out through the salt and mica clinging to her throat. It dislodges enough particles to make her cough, the water sloshing outside and inside her stomach, her wet hair falling over her face.

“What the fuck? How much water did you swallow?” The voice that Lexa is only half sure doesn’t belong to an angel – and that’s only because angels don’t curse – find her ears again, clearer this time. The girl pulls her curls away from her face as she coughs up the last of the water for now, “You’re okay, just breathe through your nose.”

Lexa follows what the angel says, breathing through her nose as she tries to focus on something other than the gentle rocking of the waves. She finds blonde hair only a few inches away from her, close enough that she can focus on it. It’s darker than it was when it was dry and far away, but Lexa can see the mica clinging to it. It seems like a fair compromise. A few shades darker for natural glitter.

It’s easier, breathing through her nose, and she doesn’t cough much more. But the floor still feels like miles away and, when Lexa looks away from the blonde and straight ahead, she realizes why – she can see her painted toenails floating in front of her.

“Where are my feet?” Lexa babbles, confused as to why her own words don’t make sense. She had meant to ask why she can’t just get up and where the fuck is the sand that had been under her feet just a few moments ago. Maybe she swallowed more water than she thinks she did.

But the beautiful girl beside her smiles, and she thinks it might be worth it.

“They’re right here. I got them, don’t worry.” She reaches out to touch Lexa’s feet, just out of her reach. The blonde settles for touching her calf instead, and that seems to bring the feeling back to the lower half of her body. “Actually, could you put them down? We can walk back to the beach.”

Lexa is about to ask where  _ down _ is right now, but the girl pushes her knees gently towards the right direction. It takes Lexa a few seconds to feel the sand moving under her feet, and another wave threatens to tumble her over again before she has the chance to find her footing. But the girl doesn’t let her go into the deep again, gripping her waist a little tighter as she guides them both back.

After a few tentative steps, Lexa figures out how to walk again. It takes her all she has not to spring apart from the girl, who keeps looking at her like Lexa will drown if she takes her eyes off of her for too long. 

Her pride is wounded. Lexa has been trying so hard  _ not _ to be treated like a child during this trip. Then she not only drowns and needs that a stranger pick her up from the bottom of the sea, but she also manages to make a fool of herself.

The blonde only lets go of her waist when the water is up to their knees, quickly grabbing Lexa’s hand. She won’t say it, but she’s thankful for it – her legs aren’t in perfect working order yet, and the sea seems determined to ask back what it owns.

They’re still holding hands when they get to the lifeguard tower, but the girl doesn’t call for the lifeguard, doesn’t alert anyone. Simply guides Lexa until she’s sitting on a towel, under the flimsy shade the tower provides. 

“You’re okay,” the girl says, almost as if she’s reassuring herself, tucking a few things away before sitting beside Lexa. A beach bag she put on the sand topples over, spilling sunglasses and a flannel, camera bag half digging in the sand. “I’m Clarke.”

Lexa looks up, finally meeting the girl’s – Clarke’s – eyes.

For a moment, Lexa can’t see much, the sun forming a too-bright halo around the already drying blonde hair. When her eyes adjust, Lexa lets herself take her in. Clarke is close enough that Lexa can see how perfectly the blue of her eyes matches the blue of the waves crashing against the sand. The specks of gold in her irises resemble mica, making them shine as much as the water. 

She might have swallowed more water than she thought. “Lexa,” she gives her name freely, straightening her spine and offering a hand for Clarke to shake. She knows her chances of making a good impression are long gone, but she still tries.

“You’re not used to the sea, are you?” Clarke asks, brushing the sand that clings to her thigh. Like Lexa’s friends had told her, it really clings to you. But Clarke seems to be be doing it more out of habit than really trying to clean her legs.

It takes a well timed cough for Lexa to peel her eyes from Clarke’s thighs – they’re tan and toned, and Lexa tells herself she’s simply admiring because of how sharp the contrast between them and her own gangly legs are. “It’s my first time here, actually,” she finally gets out once her cough subdues. She’s still tasting salt and rotten fish.

“You don’t say,” Clarke laughs, and  _ oh _ . Lexa isn’t completely sure if she’s being made fun of or not, but when she sees the smile that lightens up Clarke’s face more than the morning sun could dream of, she finds that she doesn’t care. “Why were you alone there? Are you alone here?”

Lexa is ready to answer, she really is. Because she can be friendly and polite, and if anyone deserves her on her best behavior, it’s the girl who saved her from drowning. 

But Clarke scoots closer to Lexa and leans in, reaches out to peel a few twigs and algae that made their way to her hair. Her whole body goes rigid, her spine almost locked in place, her jaw clenched – nothing helps when Clarke gets close enough for Lexa to smell the sea on her hair, feel the summer heat wafting from her skin, almost be able to count the freckles on her shoulder.

She could get used to the smell of sea, if it were always mixed with whatever shampoo Clarke uses.

Words seem to have left her completely and all Lexa can do it stare, hopeless and carelessly, with her heart beating fast enough to demand medical attention. Her eyes drift from the soft beauty mark on top of her eyebrow to the one near her lips, to the way her jawline connects to her shoulder, to her cleavage almost spilling out from her top.  _ Shit _ .

Clarke draws back, tossing the handful of sea trinkets to the sand, and Lexa takes a deep breath. “I’m with my siblings. They didn’t want to swim.”

“Why exactly did you go so far into the sea alone, if it’s your first time at the beach?” Clarke asks as she leans back on her hands, closing her eyes against the glare of the sun against the white sand. It doesn’t exactly help Lexa’s case.

Her fingers itch to reach out and brush a lock of hair away from Clarke’s shoulder, let it fall with the rest of her hair. Instead, Lexa piles her own hair over her shoulder and starts braiding it – more to keep her hands busy than anything. “I’m used to swimming in lakes, I didn’t think the sea would be that different.”

“It’s not, after you get the hang of it,” Clarke says with the wisdom of someone who was born tasting the salty water. Lexa doesn’t think she’ll ever  _ get the hang  _ of it – or step back into the ocean, for that matter. When Clarke opens one eye to look at her, Lexa finds herself holding her breath, “Maybe I could teach you how to handle the waves. I promise I won’t let you drown.”

All the air she had been holding on to leaves her lungs and she just can’t get herself to suck in another breath.

Lexa opens and closes her mouth, unable to get any words out. Her traitorous brain conjures up images that fill her stomach with liquid lead, making it drop a few inches when she thinks about Clarke’s hands holding onto her waist again when they first get into water, their hands tangling together after Lexa is more steady on her swimming but Clarke isn’t ready to leave her all on her own just yet. She tries to keep herself from going as far as imagining the contrast between Clarke’s sun kissed skin, forever warm and comforting, to the harsh cold of the ocean waters. It doesn’t work, it doesn’t help her find her voice again.

Looking out towards the sea and letting the crashing waves distract her for a moment, Lexa grits her teeth. The seconds tick by, and right when Clarke is about to say something, maybe retract the offer altogether, Lexa nods.

It feels like a victory when Clarke smiles at her before closing her eyes again and throwing her head back. Lexa licks her lips that feel chapped and dry, and she does a pretty good job at convincing herself it’s because of the salty sea water and has nothing to do with the way Clarke’s chest rises and falls with each breath.

Do they have a date? Is this  _ teaching-you-how-to-handle-the-waves _ a date? Or just a local girl being friendly, so she doesn’t have to pause her photographing to dive into the sea to save a stranger? Maybe Clarke is just being nice. She’s probably just being nice and getting started on her volunteer work for college, although “taught tourist how not to drown” wouldn’t look that great on an application.

Oh  _ god _ , it’s a date.

Her heart hammers against her ribcage, the rhythm changing so suddenly that it frightens her, leaves her unsure of what to do with herself.

Lexa has never been on a date, not really. With her (now ex) girlfriend, they had skipped all the awkwardness from first dates and getting to know each other, and landed straight on sleeping over each other’s house and sharing a too small bed. They had been friends before, they had known everything about each other before their lips met. Bad dates and uncomfortable silences had been nothing but tales Lexa heard from the other girls in her year.

But watching Clarke unfold her legs and propping on up on her foot, Lexa thinks that maybe she’ll have her own stories to share.

She pushes past the knot in her throat. Should she wear makeup? No, they’ll go swimming and it’s too humid and too hot for any makeup to stay on her face anyway. Are they going somewhere when the sun is gone and they don’t really want to go home? Is dinner included in this? Afterwards, should she invite Clarke–

“Hey, Lex,” a familiar voice snaps her out of her self-induced panic just in time, and Lexa looks up to find Lincoln towering over her, “We’re heading back, dad wants to have lunch with us. And Anya told me that she has your arm floats for the kiddie pool. What did you do to piss her off?” He chuckles, and Lexa rolls her eyes because of course Anya would say something like that, and  _ of course _ , Lincoln would relay the message in front of a pretty girl Lexa was trying (and failing) to impress. Lexa grits her teeth and glances to Clarke. Her eyes are still closed, but her cheeky smile is enough to know she’s very amused by all this, “Who’s this?”

Lexa opens and closes her mouth a few times, still trying to let the embarrassment of her sister saying she needs  _ arm floats _ wash over her. Clarke finds her voice before Lexa does, wiping the sand from her hand before reaching up blindly for Lincoln, “I’m Clarke. I saved her from drowning.”

“I wasn’t drowning,” Lexa adds, more to herself than anything. Because she  _ wasn’t _ drowning. She got distracted and swallowed some water, but she was fine. Neither pay attention to her.

“Alright. I’m Lincoln, nice to meet you,” he shakes Clarke’s hand politely, but the look she gives Lexa tells her she’ll be on the receiving end of some serious teasing when she does get to the hotel. “I’m gonna take off now. See you at the hotel soon? We got your things.”

Lexa nods, once, watching Lincoln jog back to where Anya is waiting for him with all their things. She didn’t realize they were so close to the lifeguard tower when they settled on the sand, but then again, the current probably pulled her a little ways away.

“I wasn’t drowning,” Lexa repeats, louder this time, definitely firmer, with her shoulders drawn back and her chin tilted up, making herself look as put together as possible – which is a feat she’s pretty proud of, considering she had been sputtering nonsense about letting a squid take her down less than fifteen minutes ago.

It seems to amuse Clarke, more than anything else.

Clarke springs to her feet, pulling her camera from under a bundle of shirts and towels by the strap, and stares at Lexa with a stupid smirk on her face. The new position makes Lexa lose the upper hand she really thought she had for a moment there, but she accepts Clarke’s hand to help her get to her feet as well. “You still haven’t thanked me for saving your life, you know?”

Heat that has nothing to do with the nearly midday sun crawls up Lexa’s neck. Even if she was  _ not _ drowning, Clarke still did dive into the sea to help her, and Lexa had been so busy trying to keep her tongue from betraying her that she forgot her manners.

Letting go of Clarke’s hand for a split second, Lexa slides her hand a little further until she has a firm grasp on her forearm. It’s a silly twist on the pinky promise her siblings had came up with when they were kids, only letting Lexa in on this when their dad had yelled at them for constantly keeping her out of everything. 

She doesn’t explain it to Clarke, but she doesn’t seem to mind either. 

Lexa takes a step forward, a surge of bravery coursing through her bloodstream when she notices the gasp Clarke takes, the way her eyes dart in between green ones and her lips. “Thank you for unnecessarily diving after me, because I wasn’t drowning.”

“Oh, so you were doing it all for the attention?” Clarke recovers much faster than Lexa would give her credit for, her eyes turning slightly darker even under the bright sun. “Damn, I knew that surly look meant something else.” Her voice drops an octave and Lexa blinks, her legs shaking under her, threatening to stop working altogether.

Any courage she has managed to spring to life is gone. She lets go of Clarke’s arms, feeling her palms growing sweaty and clammy –  _ fuck _ . “I– what–”

“See you later? We can meet up here around five, the water will be calmer then,” Clarke says, her voice back to a casual tone, without any trace of the flirting she had only a moment ago. She fiddles with her camera for a moment as she slips her flip flops back on and walks away from the lifeguard tower.

Lexa only realizes she’s still rooted in the spot when Clarke reaches the water and turns back to wave at her, laughter sounding beautifully across the beach.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [Tumblr](http://sassymajesty.tumblr.com), [Twitter](https://twitter.com/sassymajesty) and also [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/sassymajesty) now! You're all more than welcome to reach out and send me a message - it can be all yelling, I swear I don't mind as long as you're nice. 
> 
> On Tumblr, you can find sneak peeks for upcoming chapters, as well as other tidbits, like gifsets and oh, spoilers I give in whatever message that gives me room for it! And if you want to know more about my writing and other stories, I put everything together in a page [here](http://sassymajesty.tumblr.com/writing)!


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